Troubles bottle conditioning, too much cold crashing?

[nervousbrewer]

I have had a German Alt bottled for little over a month now. I still don't see much carbonation. I added priming sugar, however I also cold crashed this batch, once after primary and once after secondary (I kept it at 45° for two weeks during the secondary). Did I strip out too many yeast?

There's a tiny bit of carbonation evident in the beer, but I can't get a head. I had read that it would take longer to carbonate after cold crashing, but...

I think I am going to get some Safale US-05 and put a few grains in six bottles or so and see if they carbonate in few weeks. If that works, I'll pop open the rest and do the same.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks

[BDawg]

How warm has the beer been while carbonating?
45F is cold. It'll work, but take months.
Raise it to 70F and it'll be ready in 2 weeks.

Also, keep the bottles off the cement floor. That sucks the heat right out of them.

HTH-

[nervousbrewer]

No, it's been around 68-70 for about a month. Now that it was warmed up a little, I think I am going to try and get them a little warmer, 75 or so, for a couple of weeks and try one.

I only kept the beer at 40 for two weeks in a secondary carboy before I bottled.

[BDawg]

Ok, you might have knocked out too much yeast.

Roll the bottles on their side like a rolling pin and see if anything kicks up (use a bright flashlight to see through if you can). If you get clouds, then that rousing action should be enough to restart the fermentation.

If no clouds, then you are right, you should probably rehydrate a packet of some neutral yeast like US-05 in a cup of pre-boiled water, and add some of that solution using a sanitized eye dropper to each bottle and recap.

HTH-

[brewinhard]

Next time after cold crashing be sure to add a packet of rehydrated neutral ale yeast to your bottling bucket along with priming sugar to ensure a quick carbonation. I prefer Lalvin - EC-1118 champagne yeast for this, as it is cheap (1$), smaller 5 g packet, neutral, and works well in alcoholic and low pH environments. Better than wasting a good packet of US-05 or the like and much cheaper.